


Lost and Found

by cosmogyrals



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:11:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyrals/pseuds/cosmogyrals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after The Day of the Doctor (contains spoilers). The Doctor and Clara go in search of an old friend to return his property to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost and Found

"You still owe me cocktails on the moon." Clara leaned back against the console of the TARDIS, surveying the Doctor – her Doctor – as he set the coordinates, the time rotor rising and falling rhythmically as they dematerialised. 

"Cocktails-" The Doctor spun on the heel of his boot to face her, the hem of his purple jacket flaring. "We saved a planet – an entire people – _my_ people – and you still expect cocktails on the moon, Clara Oswald? No, we've got something far more important than that." He grinned at her, and for the first time, the sorrow that had always been present in his eyes had been replaced by another emotion: hope. "But first, I owe a friend of mine a visit."

"A friend." She repeated the phrase slowly, eyeing him with suspicion. "What sort of friend?" Clara hesitated. "You don't mean Elizabeth, do you?"

"No, no – do you know, she tried to have me shot the next time I saw her? Except it hadn't happened for me yet, so I didn't have any idea why I'd suddenly become her mortal enemy." He reached up, scratching the back of his neck as he grimaced. "Can't suppose I blame her, actually. First I ruined her, then I left her at the altar- well, she's not exactly the first monarch I've jilted in my life. Probably won't be the last, either. These things do happen with an astonishing frequency- anyway, speaking of jilted lovers, we've got a vortex manipulator to return." He paused for a moment, rethinking the implication of his words. "Not that we've ever- I mean- oh, that didn't come out the way I'd meant it to."

Clara picked up the wrist strap on the console, running her hands over the much-abused leather. "But Kate said it was bequeathed to UNIT." She really wasn't going to touch anything else the Doctor had said with a ten-foot pole (although she was a little curious as to whether or not he'd actually slept with Queen Elizabeth).

"Zygon Kate said that. I imagine the real story is a bit more complicated- well, Jack's complicated. And not usually much of one to waste his time with things like wills, considering the regularity with which he'd have to write them." 

"Do you ever make any sense?" She frowned at the Doctor. "And why can't I keep the vortex manipulator? It might come in handy again."

"And have you zipping around throughout time and space? God, no, you'd be nearly as bad as Jack. You cause quite enough trouble as it is, Clara Oswald, and I intend to keep an eye on you." Though his words were stern, the Doctor's tone was fond. Clara privately thought that their situation was the other way around; she was the one keeping an eye on him. "Here we are! The fabled floating pleasure gardens of Iskrides. One of the most famous holiday spots in the galaxy. Much nicer than Cardiff, at any rate; he's moving up in the world."

"Who would go on holiday in Cardiff?" Clara wrinkled her nose as she pushed past the Doctor, heading for the door of the TARDIS. Pleasure gardens sounded nice, but they also sounded dull; in Clara's experience, places that existed simply as a place to go on holiday tended to be well-kept, pretty, and, to put it bluntly, unexciting. She much preferred places with a bit of mystery to them, somewhere she could properly explore – in which case, Cardiff might have actually been preferable, even if it was in Wales.

"Don't look at me," the Doctor shrugged, "I just fuel up there, like an intergalactic petrol station. Or I did till the Rift closed." He shoved the vortex manipulator into his pocket, frowning distastefully at it. " _Space hopper_ ," he muttered under his breath.

"This...Jack bloke-" Clara started to say as she looked around at the gardens. They were just as tame and manicured as she'd feared. Gorgeous, of course; she'd never seen anything like the array of colours in the alien plants surrounding her, and landscaping was simply breathtaking. But for all that, it was...lacking.

"Captain Jack Harkness," the Doctor corrected her. "He does like the title."

"Of course. Captain Jack Harkness – that's military, right? Did he work for UNIT? Like you. Apparently." Clara still wasn't sure she believed that the Doctor had ever worked for UNIT; he simply didn't seem capable of having a job, no matter what he claimed.

"Jack? Oh, no, Jack's Torchwood. Or he was Torchwood. They don't do titles, mind, he picked that one up when he was serving in the RAF back in World War Two and never really let go of it. Along with the rest of his name, actually. Never really asked what his name was before. Doesn't matter, he's Jack Harkness now."

"Captain Jack Harkness. And what's Torchwood? I've never heard of it." While she'd got better at following the Doctor's conversation over time, she still tended to be completely lost whenever he started talking about his past. It wasn't her fault; he was something like twelve hundred years old, after all, if he was to be believed (and she wasn't sure she did believe him).

"Like UNIT, but less...UNIT-y. British only – UNIT's worldwide, used to be part of the UN. Torchwood's defunct now. As far as I know, anyway." He sounded a little grim when he said that, and Clara didn't want to ask him to elaborate. "Jack's...well, I don't really know what he's up to these days, actually. We sort of lost touch a few hundred years ago. But the TARDIS says he's here somewhere, and I trust her to know."

Clara hadn't known the TARDIS could track people, and she found it a little unsettling. She hoped the Doctor didn't have the habit of implanting tracking chips in his companions while they slept, or something equally disturbing. He didn't seem like the sort, but then again, you never knew, did you? 

"The problem is," the Doctor added, "I don't know precisely where he is, or what he's doing in a place like this, although I can certainly guess." His tone was slightly distasteful; obviously whatever Jack was doing, the Doctor didn't approve of it. "I mean, pleasure gardens – well, that's very _him_."

"Does he like flowers, then?" Clara craned her neck, looking around at the tourists; any one of them could be Jack, she reckoned. Though she still had bits and pieces of the Doctor's memories, she didn't know much about most of his previous companions. 

"Flowers? Yeah, I guess you could say something like that. Ah! Over there, under that Taimian willow tree, right by the waterfall." The tree the Doctor indicated had gently curved branches covered in a cascade of flame-red leaves that trailed nearly to the rippling water beside it. Clara could just make out the form of a man under the tree, leaning against the trunk. "Here you go!" He shoved the wriststrap into her hands suddenly. "Go give it to him."

"Me?" she protested. "But I don't even know him! He's your old friend, not mine." Clara glowered at the Doctor for a moment, her hands on her hips. She really hated the way he tried to boss her around sometimes; she thought she'd trained him out of it, but apparently not. "You are _so_ coming with me, Doctor." Maybe they'd lost touch because they'd fought – but if that was the case, why was the Doctor even bothering to return the vortex manipulator in the first place? Clara reached out and grabbed his hand in a flash, tugging him along the neat stone path that led to the willow tree.

"Captain Jack Harkness?" Clara asked, parting the branches and peering through them.

"Well, _hello_." Jack straightened up, flashing Clara a brilliant smile. This was obviously a man who thought highly of himself and how he looked. Clara had to admit, his opinion appeared to be justified; he certainly seemed to be rather handsome. He had neat dark hair and a strong jawline, and he wore a long woollen military coat that was nicely filled out by his broad shoulders. "And who are you?"

"Clara Oswald." She offered Jack a hand to shake, and was a little surprised when he raised it to his lips, brushing a kiss across her knuckles. Not many men did that sort of thing, in her experience; it reminded her of the other Doctor doing the same thing earlier that day. "I've – _we've_ – come here to return something that belongs to you."

"Nice to meet you, Clara Oswald." His gaze flicked over to the Doctor, and though he didn't seem to recognise him, he didn't ask for an introduction, either. The Doctor didn't offer any words of explanation, and Clara wondered if he planned on speaking at all.

"Here." She thrust the vortex manipulator at him, suddenly feeling impossibly awkward. So much for Jack being an old friend of the Doctor's, she thought; he certainly didn't treat him like one. 

The expression on Jack's face was a mixture of gratitude and relief. He took the vortex manipulator and pushed his coat sleeve up, strapping it back on his wrist with the ease of many long years of practise. "Ah, that's better. Haven't seen that in ages – where'd you get it from?"

"A woman named Kate had it." Well, that wasn't the whole truth, but Clara didn't know if he could be trusted with that.

"Kate? You don't mean Kate Stewart, do you?" Jack looked surprised. "How did UNIT- never mind, I'm not sure I want to know. Don't suppose you bumped into a woman named Martha Jones while you were there? About your height, gorgeous smile, brilliant mind to match-"

"Jack," the Doctor said finally, his tone a little exasperated.

"What? I can't ask about old friends? Not like you're offering any details, Doc. This regeneration isn't very chatty, is it? And a bow tie? Really?"

"Bow ties are cool!" he insisted.

'They aren't cool,' Clara mouthed; it was often a bone of contention between the pair of them, though not as much as fezzes were. Jack just grinned at her.

"Of course, I suppose you could convince me otherwise if you were wearing nothing but a bow tie," Jack continued, slinging an arm around the Doctor's shoulders. 

"This is why I wanted you to give it to him by yourself, Clara."

"So he could hit on me instead?" Clara folded her arms over her chest, studying the two of them. Jack looked inordinately pleased with himself, while the Doctor appeared to be resigned to his fate. "Not very brave, are you?"

"Who said I'm not going to hit on you anyway?" Jack arched his eyebrows, turning that smile on Clara again. Oh, she was definitely starting to like him. 

"I certainly didn't."

"And I think you're more than welcome to." Clara favoured Jack with a rather flirtatious smile of her own. "Though I'm not sure I agree with the idea of the Doctor just wearing a bow tie." She had, perhaps, occasionally entertained a tiny little inappropriate thought about the Doctor – after all, she fell in love twice a day, it would have been difficult not to – but naked apart from the bow tie didn't strike her as especially appealing. "Or a fez," she added.

"A fez?" Jack looked bewildered for a moment. "Can't say I've ever done that before – a UNIT beret, maybe-"

"Did you get Martha to steal a UNIT beret for you?" The Doctor paused for a moment. "Was it with Martha?" He looked slightly horrified at the thought.

He rolled his eyes. "I don't kiss and tell, Doctor. Not usually, anyway. So- new regeneration, how long's it been? Done anything interesting lately?"

"A few hundred years, give or take, and I just finished rewriting what I thought was a fixed point in time – the ultimate fixed point in time, actually, apart from you. What about you? I suppose you've been hitchhiking lately, without your little manipulator there. You're a long way from Cardiff, you know."

Clara wondered what he meant by Jack being a fixed point in time; the Doctor talked about that sort of thing often, but surely a person couldn't be a fixed point. That just didn't make sense. Of course, she wouldn't have thought that he could have saved Gallifrey, either, and all the Doctors had just proved her wrong on that count.

"Like you said – hitchhiking. Just drifting, really. I haven't found anything to keep me occupied in a long time; I came here for a little diversion, but it's not the same anymore. Everything's changed."

" _You've_ changed," the Doctor said quietly. "Since you met me."

"That's what you do to people, Doctor," Clara pointed out. "You change us all, whether we want it to happen or not. There's no sense in regretting it or blaming yourself for it, because you make us better than we were before. You show us everything that's out there – everything that's ever happened, everything that will ever be – and you show us that it's all worth saving, no matter the cost, no matter what we have to do." She'd thrown herself into the Doctor's timestream to save him, fractured herself into thousands of echoes across time and space, and she knew that any of his other companions would have done the same thing if they'd had to. She would never see the universe in the same way again – none of them would.

Jack favoured her with a softer smile now, one that said that he understood exactly what she was talking about. There was no hint of seduction in it this time, just simple camaraderie. "Couldn't have said it better myself. You made a good choice this time, Doc."

"Who said the choice was his?" Clara smirked at him, her mood suddenly shifting back to playful again. "He might've been stalking me with his snogbox, but that didn't mean I absolutely had to go along with him."

"The TARDIS is not a _snogbox_!" The Doctor looked just as indignant as he always did when Clara used that term for his ship.

"I certainly didn't get any snogging when I was with him. Which was a shame, actually. And was he really stalking you?"

"Really really," Clara confirmed, her smile widening.

"Was not," the Doctor muttered sulkily. "Don't know why I even let the two of you meet. All you're going to do now is gossip about me, and I can't be having any of that."

"Is he always so grumpy?" Jack whispered loudly as the Doctor started to walk away from the tree.

"I heard that, Jack Harkness!"

"Nah, not always, just some of the time. Do you always hang out in boring pleasure gardens?" Clara gestured for Jack to come with her as she followed the Doctor back out into the sunlight.

"Most girls your age wouldn't call a place like this boring," he pointed out. "It's beautiful here."

"Beautiful and boring," she agreed. "Everything's so tame. I bet they never have any problems here – not so much as a single weed. You ought to come with us," Clara offered spontaneously.

Jack looked hopeful at the offer, and Clara wondered for a moment what had made him leave the Doctor in the first place. There was always something, she knew; companions who were dead, stranded in other universes, memory wiped. Their stories almost never had happy endings, and she didn't think Jack was an exception to the rule.

"Not sure he'd like that," Jack said, his voice low and quiet.

"The Doctor doesn't like a lot of things." Clara shrugged. "He'll get over it." And Jack seemed lonely – more than that, he seemed like he needed something to ground him again. He reminded her of the Doctor, in a way. He had that look in his eyes, the one that said he was far older than he appeared, that he'd seen things nobody should ever have to see. Clara didn't know if she could make things better, but she wanted to try, and she didn't care if the Doctor would approve or not.

"There's the old girl!" Jack crowed as the TARDIS came into view. "Oh, she's a sight for sore eyes." He laid his hand on the door. "Did you miss me?"

"Oi!" the Doctor protested. "If she takes off without me inside just because you're touching her-"

"Calm down, Doctor, she won't." Jack rolled his eyes at the Doctor's theatrics, and Clara giggled a little. "Honestly, you try and hitch a ride once, and he never lets you forget about it," he said to her.

"You were clinging to the outside of the TARDIS in the middle of the Time Vortex and she travelled trillions of years to throw you off!" the Doctor huffed. "Forgive me for expressing a bit of concern."

"Trillions of years?" Clara suddenly felt a little more sceptical about the offer she'd made to Jack, but pushed it aside. "Well, she doesn't like me, either. Doctor, Jack's going to come with us."

The Doctor glanced back and forth between the two of them for a moment and sighed, resigned to his fate. "This," he said, "can only end badly for me."

"Don't be such a pessimist," Clara told him brightly. "What's the worst that can happen?"

"Other than the two of you telling stories about me, you mean?" The Doctor folded his arms over his chest. "All sorts of things. But I suppose you could use something to keep you occupied, couldn't you, Jack?"

"I can think of a few things." Jack winked broadly at Clara.

"Oh, I bet you can." The Doctor shook his head, but he pushed the TARDIS door open anyway. "Come along, then. You can join us for cocktails on the moon, and we'll see where things go from there." He paused for a moment, then smiled at Jack. "It's good to have you back, Captain."

"It's good to be back, Doctor."


End file.
